The bank said they didn't have enough cash to give my friend when he went to withdraw $5000. Is that legal?

Question

I told him to get a cashier's check and we could take that to my bank and I could put it in my account and get the cash from it. My bank said I could only have access to $2000 that was in my account and they would put a hold on the other for 7 days. I thought a cashiers check was as good as cash?! Why didn't the other bank have enough cash? We live in a REALLY small town.

Answer 1

Fraud being rampid and all that, banks like to be safe rather than sorry. You have access to what's in your account, as for the rest it must clear the usual channels.

Answer 2

I think you would have to read the fine print when you signed up the answer this.  Yes though you bank should be able to write you a cashiers check right away for the balance of your account.  At least I've never had trouble getting them in minutes.  If you were trying for cash it may have been a problem with them keeping cash on hand (though I can't imagine that 5k would make a dent).

Answer 3

My WAG is that someone is confusing the meaning of the words "won't" and "can't."

In general, banks routinely refuse to hand more than $500 in cash to any one person on any one day.  They are protecting themselves from fraud and theft.

You can get around these rules if you arraign for the withdrawal ahead of time...although you may have to jump through some hoops.

7-15 day holds are typical for amounts that are more than 2 times the average daily balance on a particular account.  Again the bank is protecting themselves from fraud.  The bank "figures" if you keep $1000 in your account all the time then you must be "used to" handling a couple of grand at a time, max.  So if someone is going to "s***w you" or if you are going to cheat the bank $3000 would be a good amount to watch very closely for problems.

Cashiers check are not what they used to be.  The bottom line is that they can be forged, so unless it is their cashier's check, banks are going to be safe rather than sorry.

Answer 4

Smaller banks and credit unions tend to keep very little cash on hand.  Some credit unions restrict cash back to $1,000.00.  Banks make money by investing your money.As for your bank not giving you more than $2,000 of it...they need to get the before it is available to you.  There are also a lot of counterfeit cashiers checks around these days so banks are more cautious.

Answer 5

i think thats wrong if u have the money in your account u should be able 2 draw it out when ever u want

Answer 6

Banks can put holds on any check, including a cashier's check.

Answer 7

I've had a similar problem with a large bank in a large city.  Apparently, cashier's checks can only be cashed immediately only up to a certain amount.  I guess it's designed that way to keep the bank from getting burned to badly in the event of a forgery or identity theft.  When my wife and I brought a car last year we used a cashier's check.  The seller gave us a little bit of a hassle because he knew they would not be able to transfer the funds immediately due to the amount of the cashier's check.  It turned out he was right.  Only a portion was immediately deposited and the rest took a few days.  He did the deal anyway and took the chance.

Of course, the bank took the full amount out of our account immediately.  

Answer 8

sounds typical for a small town bank.

the 7 day hold is the legal maximum.